A bad start...

I'm having a tough morning...

Mondays are always tough here. Kids don't want to get up, the latest and greatest bills are piled high, I come home with a schedule that for two weeks now has been cut to less than forty hours, the wife is facing another week of evenings alone with the kids (which always gets her temper up), and my fantasy football team is getting its ass handed to Jambo and I by an old friend from the Coast because we can't seem to find a quarterback that can score more than 20 fantasy points two weeks in a row without some major physical injury.

But... the kitchen is clean, the kids are on the bus, and the laundry is in the machine. I have some time to kill and thought a relaxing fight here at the Bund might make things look better.

I wanted to talk about Glenn Beck... and ALL talk radio hosts that I have had an opportunity to listen to over the years.

Ryan says I "love to dump on Beck"... but that isn't entirely true. What frustrates me more than anything else is that I cannot find a radio show that gives me what I want for the whole show. I HATE the "hit and miss" prospect of tuning in a radio hoping the topic will be something I find interesting or topical. For weeks, I thought Beck was it... the banter between Beck, Pat and Stu was priceless and made my day every time I got to hear it, but that sort of exchange doesn't happen on his show anymore with any sort of regularity. I'm only in the car for a specific period of time each week, so I can't simply wait for another show... I'm locked into specific time slots.

In the past, I've heard many hosts. I think my favorite was Mike Church, but Bill Bennett was pleasant (if a bit banal), and the Wilkow Majority always got my temper up (one way or the other). Hannity is simply too trite for words, and Levin is enough make anyone dislike him just for his mannerisms and demeanor. Bauer and Rose, David Webb, Rusty Humphries... all fall short of what I expect in talk radio.

I'd love to see a serious, regular discussion about the prospects, merits and viability of either the conservative OR the liberal/progressive efforts given with a rational, reasonable, measurable and specific historical context. There is a program on Sunday nights as I get off work on the liberal radio channel of my satellite radio called "Left Jab" which is about the best left-leaning show I've ever heard, but they are incapable or unwilling to discuss or debate the agendas and values of the liberal platform with anyone other than liberals and progressives... so I am forced to ask questions I can't ever get answers to.

Maybe I thought Beck was the answer. Maybe I thought Beck would give me everything I wanted in a program. I don't have to (or even necessarily WANT to) agree with everything said in a radio talk show, but I demand that the program provide stimulating, thought-provoking conversations and discussions about topics I find relavent. Beck had that for months, but in the last six or eight weeks, the almost rabid focus on fundamanetal Christian theology and its application and context within the American political and social agenda has almost utterly removed him from my sphere of consideration. So much so that I'd rather listen to audio CDs of Silas Marner, 1776, and The Lord of the Rings.

So, my beef isn't with Beck, it's with all of them. They are all "dropping the ball" in my opinion...